Helping Future Teachers Negotiate the Paroxysms of Patriotism at Home and Abroad: A Parallax View

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Proposal

As teacher candidates try to make sense of new environments into which they are thrust, the results are often dis-adaptation or even mal-adaptation to the whirlwind surrounding them. As supporters of student teachers struggling to find solid ground, we believe their stories – several of which are shared here – are instructive. We approach this discussion from the perspective of the parallax view as framed by philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj Žižek, who offers insights into the manner in which all conflicting social experiences are observed. It is impossible to anticipate all the potential challenges prospective teachers will face but we can introduce them to the idea that the astronomer has a parallax view of a supernova at point A compared to seeing the same phenomena at point B.  “Am I looking at the same thing?”  Yes.  But you will need to open new folders in your intellectual filing cabinet and expect an emotional upheaval to spring from the drawer. Like those astronauts arrested by the view as they looked back at earth for the first time, our job is to help humble pioneers to embrace their own view and experience from around the world.

We find the theoretical perspective of the parallax view highly compatible with the DLN framework, which recognizes the dis-placement that our students experience when their original expectations are replaced with a new target. The result is that any “synthesis or mediation” of the new target is often impossible in the minds of our students. Without synthetic clarity, they are handed ambiguities in expectations that resemble holographic puzzles more than logical structures. As commentators, we pursue these puzzles by observing case studies of two students trying to blend an American notion of patriotism with conflicting cultures, one in China and the other in Germany. All experience is instructive, but these stories illustrate the power of individual personality in making oneself open – or not – to a new opportunity. As guides, we need to be mindful of what one student teacher views as an opportunity and another as an obstacle.

We also recount the experience of dis-identification from social and cultural norms as American students in China and Norway confront the nature of free expression when it is compromised by conflicting personal feelings of national pride, shame and embarrassment, or even patriotic indoctrination. A significant advantage of vicarious cross-cultural experience, including a parallax view of patriotism, is deeper understanding of our own culture through reflection on the experience of those in our charge. As the great comparative sociologist Max Weber illustrates, it was necessary to go to China to understand European Protestantism. In this spirit, we will invite others to share their own parallax encounters at home and abroad, leading to discussion of how our experience can shed light on efforts to help guide future teachers through theirs, and vice versa.

Author

• Geoffrey Scheurman, University of Wisconsin -- River Falls